CHAPTER 7

Appreciative
Resilience Workshop

Isobel came to our appreciative resilience workshop full of grief after losing a very long-term dear friend. She wasn’t able to engage at first, but as she gently worked with others in pairs and small groups, she became present with her whole self, grief and all. A few days later, we saw her again, and she remarked on how important the workshop had been for her. She looked like a very different person than when she had first begun our workshop; now along with grief was joy.

Stories like this one inspire us to continue the journey of working with appreciative resilience and aiding individuals, groups, and organizations with developing their own path to practicing leadership resilience.

We know that other leaders who have skills in appreciative inquiry and facilitation may want to undertake working closely with the appreciative resilience model. Consequently, in this chapter, we describe the appreciative resilience workshop and interweave how leaders might apply it in their own work with teams and organizations to ignite conversations about building resilience with appreciative inquiry in the leadership journey through hope, despair, and forgiveness. The workshop can be used as a whole or in pieces to prompt discussion and reflection. We provide some basic facilitation insights that experienced facilitators can build on. We have talked extensively about resilience as a practice, and this workshop provides momentum to get that practice started for individuals, teams, and organizations.

Engaging leaders in these exercises is inspiring and lets them take away appreciative inquiry practices for resilience and bring these conversations and explorations back to their own teams and organizations. We find that leaders are curious about the notions of hope, despair, and forgiveness as elements or states of daily leadership. Many say that they haven’t thought of these elements in this way before and that exploring them is not something they’ve done. For most leaders, the conversations around hope are the easiest to initiate in their daily work. Despair is something most often left unsaid, as leaders protect themselves in their working worlds. Leaders believe that they should focus on getting things done (yes, an important aspect of leadership) with confidence, not exposing inner voices of doubt and despair. Conversations about forgiveness are also not as prevalent in leadership dialogue. We have found that leaders leave appreciative resilience workshops inspired by the opportunity to engage in these conversations and reflections. In the following pages, we outline how leaders can ignite these deep conversations.

The format for the workshop and discussions can vary depending on the time available, the background of the facilitator, and which sections are key areas of focus for individuals, teams, and organizations. There are many ways to hold these conversations. We have usually facilitated these exercises as a one-day workshop; they can be separated into several shorter sessions if there are time constraints, or expanded if more time is available.

Facilitating this kind of work entails important considerations. Most critical is setting a stage for this kind of deep personal engagement with other people by creating an appreciative climate, one that is as safe as possible for people to participate fully. Facilitators conducting this work need to be able to frame the workshop with the AI concepts that form the outer circle of the appreciative resilience model. Although the hope, despair, and forgiveness exercises in the workshop can be done in any order, we usually start with hope. The stories of hope and a hopeful view bring energy and uplift the group. Leaders are inspired by these stories as they bring the generative force of hope into the conversations. There are times when the leaders we are working with really want to discuss despair before moving to discuss hope. It is important to recognize that the group members may not be ready to engage with hope until they have had some space to reflect on despair. Forgiveness is usually last in the cycle because it often arises out of the stories of hope and/or despair.

In the next sections, we introduce the processes in the appreciative resilience workshop. Each section uses appreciative inquiry as its foundation. The workshop exercises and processes are designed for large groups, but can be modified for teams, pairs, or individuals. The workshop has seven sections:

1. Appreciative Climate

2. Appreciative Resilience Model

3. Hope—The Generative Force

4. Despair—Bowed but Not Defeated

5. Forgiveness—The Heart of Resilience

6. Appreciative Resilience Plan

7. Uplifting the Resilience of Others

In this chapter, we examine each of these sections in an expanded format to highlight considerations in facilitating the processes and exercises. A version of the full workshop agenda without commentary on facilitation is in appendix 2.

Appreciative Climate

This section describes processes for creating an appreciative climate in the workshop as people examine resilience together. It also touches on the importance of creating an appreciative climate in all leadership situations. We begin there.

Leaders can often get caught up in the need to get tasks done, without creating the climate for people to work together well as they perform those tasks. This can lead to not getting tasks done and a feeling of despair as people meet together time after time, often with the sense that they are spinning their wheels rather than moving forward. It can also lead to interpersonal conflict, as people get frustrated with not moving along and not surfacing this conflict in ways that can be articulated and handled well together. We’ve found that those organizations that embrace AI processes and ways of being with one another can be more effective in working well with conflict. Conflict is a natural occurrence because people bring different perspectives, ways of doing things, and ideas. These differences can lead to disagreements. In an appreciative climate, people articulate these differences and disagreements in order to work toward a collaborative response to the situation. An appreciative climate fosters people’s ability to see each other, respect differing perspectives and viewpoints, get tasks done, and create space for missteps and forgiveness. In this story, Jeanie illustrates the power of using appreciative inquiry to foster an appreciative climate:

One of the most powerful experiences that I have had as a consultant was facilitating board development with an organization that empowers young women to explore trades, technology, and science careers. I facilitated an appreciative inquiry with them to explore being a highly effective board. Out of that inquiry, they decided to implement two processes. One process was to use a consensus model for decision making. The other process was to use an opening and closing circle for every meeting. In the opening circle, people spoke about highlights of their work and lives. This brought everyone present to the meeting. In the closing circle, they expressed their appreciation for what had happened at the meeting and for working together. Over time, they also began to ground their strategic visioning and daily practices in appreciative inquiry. After doing this work with them, I was asked to be on the board and every year lead the strategic visioning session.

The board worked very effectively together. The president of the board, the executive director, and I cowrote an article for the International Journal of Appreciative Inquiry in which we reflected on the appreciative practices that lead to being a highly effective board: “everything is framed in an appreciative inquiry approach to our work—we see the diverse strengths that we bring. Even through disagreements, we speak honestly, respectfully and with curiosity in order to collaboratively serve the program. Most importantly, AI has become a way of being with each other as we work together to empower young women” (Edwards, Robertson, and Cockell 2014, 41–42).

Creating an appreciative climate applies in many leadership situations. It is key in the appreciative resilience workshop because this workshop is about deeply reflecting on being a resilient leader who journeys through hope, despair, and forgiveness. In the same way that the appreciative climate in the previous example amplifies the ability to be and work together, in the resilience workshop, creating a space where leaders can feel open to reflecting on their own leadership is critical. Consequently, every workshop begins with creating an appreciative climate using several processes:

1. Clarifying the purpose (why)

2. Reviewing the agenda (what and when)

3. Creating agreements for working together (how)

4. Engaging in an activity that helps people see one another for who they are (who)

Each of these pieces is key to setting the appreciative climate, a climate where people feel comfortable engaging in sharing stories and ideas with each other. These are recommendations for leaders and facilitators of groups, especially as they begin their work together. These pieces may be revisited throughout that work.

Why—Clarifying the Purpose

In creating an appreciative climate, clarifying the purpose is key. The purpose guides meetings, conversations, and working together in all ways. The purpose of the appreciative resilience workshop is to explore being resilient personally and professionally as leaders. This purpose guides all the sections of the workshop.

What and When—Reviewing the Agenda

Reviewing the agenda includes explaining the details of content, processes, and timing. The content comprises the pieces that are needed to meet the purpose of the session. The processes are the ways people will work with the content. The timing is the plan for each piece: how long each piece will take and when each piece will occur. In any workshop or meeting, it is important to review the agenda so that participants know what to expect and when. The appreciative resilience workshop agenda can be modified as needed based on what arises throughout the exercises and on participants’ needs. If there are changes, it’s important that facilitators let participants know the reasons for these. The changes that may arise can be in the content, processes, and/or timing. Content doesn’t usually change much in the appreciative resilience workshop except in the time allotted and processes used for each piece of content. For example, in the workshop section on despair, the time frame may be shortened or lengthened depending on how people are engaging with the content. This may impact the processes used. We are careful to explain in reviewing the agenda that processes include individual, paired, and group exercises. In reviewing the agenda, we explain that stories of despair won’t be shared with others. We also emphasize the importance of asking questions, requesting clarification, and letting us know of any needs as the workshop moves along. We respond to these throughout the workshop and make changes accordingly.

Reviewing agendas in any gathering helps create an appreciative climate because people are more comfortable when they know what is going to happen and are kept apprised of the reasons for any changes to what was originally planned.

How—Creating Agreements for Working Together

Creating agreements for working together is about articulating how people want to be together in order to work well with one another. Other terms for agreements are ground rules, group norms, or principles. We like the concept of agreements: they give everyone responsibility to be accountable for what has been agreed to, because each person has agreed to them. This is an important part of collaborative work whether people are in working teams or in workshops. The following are examples of some of the agreements that surface often: respect, active listening, be open to all ideas, have fun, and participate fully. As the words may be interpreted in different ways, taking time to define them and come to a common understanding with the group will help with living the agreements. Articulating agreements can help everyone and the facilitator(s) keep practicing an appreciative way of being together because each agreement represents what all participants want. For example, “don’t judge” is often suggested as what is not wanted and then appreciatively reframed as “be open,” which is what is wanted.

Depending on the time available and the size of the group, the creation of agreements can be facilitated in various ways. With a small group, everyone can be invited to suggest agreements, and these can be listed for everyone to see. These suggestions could follow individual reflective writing time. Larger groups can be divided into small clusters to work together to create agreement suggestions. This gives everyone more opportunity to speak and be heard. Each small cluster could come up with a set of agreements. Then each small cluster can suggest one agreement for the whole large group, going around the clusters until the agreements are complete. Agreements are complete when everyone, or every cluster, has had the opportunity to contribute all its suggestions. The facilitator invites the group to work with this list over the course of the workshop and modify it whenever necessary. Setting agreements is essential to effective collaboration as a way for the facilitator and participants to guide the group’s behavior. For example, if someone is dominating the discussions and one of the agreements was “equal opportunity to speak,” the facilitator, leader, or another participant can remind that person about this agreement.

We have worked with teams for which creating agreements for working together led to an ongoing practice of reflecting on their effectiveness as a team. They practiced reviewing how they lived their agreements daily, modified them where necessary, and recognized how living the agreements enhanced their effectiveness as a team.

Who—Engaging in an Activity That Helps People See One Another for Who They Are

Another piece that helps create an appreciative climate is to have people participate in some activity that helps them get to know one another as people (who they are) beyond their work roles (what they do). We use appreciative exercises to do this. The following are examples of possible exercises and the instructions we give:

• Select an image from magazine pictures that represents you at your best as a resilient leader and share what it represents with others.

• Select something you have with you that represents you at your best as a resilient leader and share what it represents with others.

• Draw a picture that represents you at your best as a resilient leader and share what it represents with others.

It is wonderful to observe people seeing each other through metaphors of themselves at their best, their strengths, and what they appreciate about themselves. In workshops and in teams that are newly formed, participants get to know each other right away beyond their formal roles. When teams that have worked together for a while participate in the workshop, they often are surprised by what they don’t know about each other. The sharing helps connect them and enables each of them to become authentically present with the other participants. In the appreciative resilience workshop, being authentically present helps create an environment of trust—vitally necessary if participants are to share stories and ideas about hope, despair, and forgiveness.

Appreciative Resilience Model

Although we focus on creating an appreciative climate for working together in the beginning of the workshop, creating an appreciative climate doesn’t end there. Continuing to foster an appreciative climate is key to people working well together. In this next section, defining the appreciative resilience model helps participants understand the basis of the exercises and, therefore, be more comfortable engaging in them. The components of the appreciative resilience model include the outer circle of appreciative inquiry concepts surrounding the three intersecting circles of hope, despair, and forgiveness. In other chapters, we have delved more deeply into the components of the appreciative resilience model: the appreciative inquiry outer circle (chapter 2); hope (chapter 3); despair (chapter 4); and forgiveness (chapter 5). We recommend that facilitators of appreciative resilience workshops be grounded in all of these components in order to bring them to life for participants through interactive lecture or other techniques. Here, we briefly outline the components, beginning with the appreciative inquiry outer circle.

The Outer Circle of the Appreciative Resilience Model: Appreciative Inquiry

The outer circle of the appreciative resilience model includes appreciative inquiry (AI), AI processes, AI principles, being AI, and AI leadership.

Appreciative inquiry (AI) is the foundation and is intrinsic to building resilience as leaders journey with hope, despair, and forgiveness. Appreciative inquiry helps people focus on what is working well, the positive core, and strengths (appreciative) by engaging them in questions, stories, and being curious (inquiry).

AI processes engage participants in their inquiry into resilience. They include the 4-Ds (discovery, dream, design, destiny) as illustrated in workshop section 6, appreciative resilience plan; appreciative paired interviews; appreciative questions; appreciative narrative and story exercises; and appreciative reflections.

AI principles include the five basic principles (constructionist, simultaneity, poetic, anticipatory, positive) and wholeness. The constructionist principle states that meaning making is done in relationship with others and through the words we choose. The principle of simultaneity states that inquiry and change are simultaneous. The poetic principle states that we can choose what to study, as we do when reading poetry. The anticipatory principle states that our images of the future compel our present actions to get to that future. The positive principle states that the more positive the inquiry is, the more positive change will happen. The wholeness principle states that bringing people together from all parts and roles of an organization brings out the best ideas and creativity for the organization (Kelm 2005).

Being AI is the daily practice of an appreciative inquiry mind-set—ways of seeing the world, being, and doing. This practice includes reframing problems into possibilities and threats into opportunities, as well as seeing the strengths and successes of individuals, groups, and organizations. Being AI is key to appreciative resilience, as resilience is also a daily practice. Resilience is the ability to move forward, and this ability is enhanced by building on the best of what is—what is going well for self and others.

AI leadership is about leaders bringing the processes and practices of appreciative inquiry into their daily undertaking of leading. Leaders who practice appreciative inquiry in this way embody AI. We noted in chapter 2 that this kind of embodiment is not simple. AI leadership requires the reflection on and the practice of the principles of AI, the cultivation of questions and queries that uplift the potential of others, engagement of others in leading, mobilization of the creative forces within an organization or team, and commitment to making a positive difference.

Interlocking Circles—Hope, Despair, and Forgiveness

Hope, despair, and forgiveness interlock on a constant basis in a leader’s life. Resilience is fostered from a place of maximizing one’s capabilities in states of hope, despair, and forgiveness.

Hope allows us to uplift others and ourselves in our leadership work. In exploring through appreciative inquiry how they foster hope and a hopeful view, leaders can begin the journey of finding their resilient selves and begin to use a hopeful view as an element of resilient leadership.

Despair is the place where circumstances leave leaders wondering how they will possibly move forward. States of despair may be only momentary, and or they may be life defining. Tapping into one’s strengths to sustain oneself in times of despair is a critical part of being resilient over a lifetime of leading.

Forgiveness of self and others is the bedrock of resilience. It is a conscious act of choosing to accept what is, create a space for letting go, look forward, be in the moment, and see the strengths and possibilities in the midst of challenges.

Defining the appreciative resilience model helps ground participants in these ideas in preparation for the workshop exercises. The exercises use appreciative inquiry to explore resilience through hope, despair, and forgiveness; build a resilience plan; and reflect on how to lift up the resilience of others.

Hope—The Generative Force

Hope is a positive emotion that people are easily drawn to, exploring it through telling stories and sharing ideas. Hope is a generative force in the workplace because through examining hope and a hopeful view, people open up: to each other, to thinking in a broader way, to solving problems, and to coming up with new solutions. In starting with hope in the workshop, we attempt to maximize the energy created by hope and a hopeful view. This lays the groundwork for using that positive energy in the complex reflections on despair. After experimenting with beginning the exercises with despair, we came back to beginning with hope. Beginning with despair brings people first to reliving those feelings of hopelessness that can grind them to a halt. Beginning with hope, by contrast, generates the positive emotions and energy to then reflect on despair. As we noted earlier, however, there are times when participants need to begin with a reflection on despair before they can participate in the other sections of the workshop.

The hope exercise uses appreciative inquiry interviews, sharing in small groups from those interviews, personal reflections through appreciative questions, and sharing some reflections with the whole group. We present the exercise and follow it with insights about the processes used.

Exercise: Hope—The Generative Force

Part 1

Work with a partner (or triad).

Instructions for interviewee: Think for a few moments about your leadership life. Tell a story of a time when you experienced or fostered hope. Tell it in detail: What were you doing? What was the context? Who was enabling you? What was the outcome(s)?

Instructions for interviewer: As you listen, ask any questions that arise for you, probe for details, and deeply listen.

Part 2

Join another pair. As interviewer, tell the group what moved you the most in the story you heard. Why did that aspect of the story move you?

Part 3

Reflect on the following questions. You may want to write down your answers or just sit quietly to reflect.

1. What struck you about hope?

2. How do you practice hope as a generative force in your leadership?

3. What have you done today to practice hope?

4. If you practiced hope as a tenet in your leadership, what best things in your leadership would grow?

5. How would this growth foster your resilience?

6. What enables and supports you to practice hope?

7. How has recognizing and fostering hope allowed you to persist in leadership and live through challenging times?

Part 4

Engage in large-group reflections and insights.

In the interviews, each person takes on the role of interviewer and of interviewee. Interviewers use the given questions in part 1 and, when necessary, add any other open-ended questions to help the interviewee tell stories and delve deeply into the questions. Some interviewees do not need much help as they jump into telling stories and sharing their ideas. Others may get stuck on general descriptions and lists rather than stories. The power of the stories is in how they communicate at many more levels than descriptions and lists. For example, part 1, telling the story of where you experienced or fostered hope, may lead some interviewees to provide a list of generalizations about experiencing or fostering hope. If so, the interviewer can guide the interviewee to tell a story by asking for an example situation where that list is illustrated.

One of the strengths in the interview is the interviewee’s experience of being deeply listened to and encouraged to go further by the interviewer. After the exercise, interviewees often note that being listened to and probed for depth in an interview is a rare and moving experience. It is not a typical research interview that requires all questions be asked the same way with the same words. It is a generative interview that follows the energy and provides opportunity for key themes to arise. These themes inform interviewees’ understanding of hope in their lives. The interviewer also notes some key words that represent the interview highlights in order to share these in part 2.

After the interviews, pairs form small groups, and the interviewers share what moved them as they listened to the interviewees tell their stories, and why. By doing this, each interviewer is adding an interpretation of the interviewee’s story and the themes arising. The interviewee is hearing this interpretation and is struck, in turn, by what has been heard. This activity is a powerful meaning-making activity in appreciative inquiry. Members of the small group also learn from one another by collaboratively surfacing the themes from the interviews. Some themes are common. Some are not. Together parts 1 and 2 expand the collective and individual learning about hope and a hopeful view in leadership.

This learning grounds part 3, the personal reflection on hope. Facilitators may choose to create and use other question prompts. Part 4 invites those leaders who are comfortable doing so to share with the whole group. From this sharing, a general discussion of key ideas about hope can come forward. This provides more learning about hope and a hopeful view for all the leaders in the workshop.

This exercise is one way to engage people in discussions of hope in their leadership lives. We encourage leaders to add their own questions and try other ways of engaging. For example, in a small team of four to six, the interviews could be conducted with the whole group so that everyone hears each interview. Each person in the group would have an opportunity to interview and be interviewed and, very important, to be an observer and recorder of the themes arising. Hearing everyone’s story informs the whole group about what is important and significant to each person. By sharing their stories, values, and wishes, participants learn much more about one another and their practices of hope. They deepen their relationships through this learning.

Despair—Bowed but Not Defeated

At times in a leadership life, one can be bowed down by challenges that seem overwhelming, leading to despair. There are many ways that leaders experience the state of despair. Despair can come from working with ongoing challenges that don’t seem solvable. It can also arise from the bigger challenges of work and life, such as losing a job, health issues, and relationship breakdowns. This workshop section invites leaders to use appreciative questions to focus on how they have used their capabilities, strengths, and supports to journey with despair. This section is not about focusing on the causes of the despair itself.

The first part of this despair exercise invites individual reflection on the questions, based on thinking of a minor situation of despair. It is very important that facilitators safeguard participants by inviting them to reflect on a small incident of despair rather than a major event. In a workshop, there is not enough time to debrief major life experiences and/or the trauma leaders might be carrying. Also, facilitators need to be cognizant of their own skill level in working with people discussing despair. We conduct this section not as a group activity but as a personal unshared reflection so that participants are safeguarded against sharing stories that might be difficult. Stories of despair don’t need to be shared in order for leaders to focus on their capabilities during times of despair.

Exercise: Despair—Bowed but Not Defeated

Part 1

Think of a challenging time either at work or at home. Pick something safe and small for the purposes of this exercise, but you may want to do it again with more complex issues in a safe place. From the list here, answer the first question and any others that draw you.

1. What was your greatest strength in a dark moment of your leadership?

2. How did you exercise that strength? What was the outcome?

3. Who enabled you to stand up again in the hardest moment of your leadership?

4. How did you/will you foster the power of that relationship?

5. What did you value about the situation, yourself, and others?

6. What were you fully aware of? What did you choose to focus on?

7. How did you seek and recognize allies and supporters?

8. What questions did you ask?

9. How did you reframe the situation to see possibilities?

10. How did you strive to understand the outcomes outside your control?

11. How did you brave the storm?

12. How did you develop, unfold yourself into your future?

13. What allowed you to expand and be open to opportunities?

14. How have you incorporated the new and different you into your life, as you are both the same and forever changed by despair?

Part 2

If you are comfortable doing so, share reflections, comments, and ideas with others.

Participants can engage in part 1 of this exercise through individual written reflection or by sitting or walking quietly and thinking about the answers. The questions included in part 1 provide ways to reflect on despair. The questions are written in the past tense to assist leaders in reflecting on previous despair events because those can most easily be mined for learning. Each question is built using an appreciative inquiry approach that focuses on strengths, capabilities, what worked, and a future focus.

The first question in part 1 emphasizes strengths in times of despair. Surfacing these strengths helps validate for leaders their ability to move through the state of despair or to reside in it if that is what is happening.

The other questions build in various ways on strengths, capabilities, what worked, and a future focus. In a workshop session, there may not be the time to reflect on all of the questions. That is why we encourage people to reflect on questions that draw them. The other questions could be taken into their own reflective time.

A team could use these questions over several sessions and come up with other questions as they explore the state of despair together. Exploring despair together provides an opportunity for team members to build a culture of understanding that despair happens in leadership and to support each other during those times. Lack of awareness of team members’ despair is common because typically despair is not shared. In fact, it can be considered a weakness to do so, especially in teams where there is competition and where individual winning and achievement are valued above collective relationship building as a way to be successful together.

Part 2, following the individual reflection, invites individuals to share with the larger group ideas that have arisen and thoughts about reflecting on despair. It is important that participants share only if they wish to do so. Sometimes part 2 is not done, as participants may wish to keep insights from the reflection to themselves.

Depending on the group, part 2 can be tailored to lift up what is useful to the group. For example, an intact team might elicit ideas on how to be more resilient and support each other as they reside with or move through despair. This process can deepen the bond in teams as members begin to appreciate that they’re not the only ones who experience despair in a leadership life. A group of unrelated individuals might share ideas they are taking away from working with the questions. For individuals, such sharing can assist them in recognizing that they have powerful capabilities in dark times of leadership.

Forgiveness—The Heart of Resilience

Asking for forgiveness and forgiving are at the heart of resilience. Forgiveness is core to moving from despair into the possibility of hope. We have written in previous chapters about how forgiveness is a powerful act of will and is a practice in the day to day of leadership.

In the following exercise, through sharing stories of forgiveness, participants are able to reflect on the power of forgiveness and the catalytic energy it creates. That energy propels leaders forward and allows them to reengage their agency—to be resilient.

Exercise: Forgiveness—The Heart of Resilience

Part 1

Form two circles of chairs facing each other—inside/outside circles. Think for a few moments about the role forgiveness has played in your leadership practice. It can take many forms: forgiveness of self, forgiveness of others, deeply understanding that things are as they are (a state of grace), offering forgiveness even when the “right” is on your side. Tell a story to the person sitting across from you about how forgiveness has allowed you to persist in your role as a leader. The following are some prompts: What were you doing? What was the context? Who was enabling you? What was the outcome(s)? What opened your heart to forgiveness? How did forgiveness change your leadership?

Part 2

Reflection: I believe that I can increase and foster forgiveness in my leadership practice by . . .

Part 1 begins with a few moments of individual reflection to focus on times of forgiveness and, from those reflections, come up with a story or stories to share in a process called inside/outside circles. This is one way to engage people in sharing stories. The group divides in half with one half sitting in an outer circle of chairs (or standing) and the other half forming an inner circle that faces the outer circle. The facilitator invites people to share their forgiveness stories in facing pairs, giving a time limit (two minutes, or longer if more time is available). After time is up, everyone in the inner circle moves one chair over in one direction, then the new pairs again tell forgiveness stories—could be the same story, could be a different story. The inner circle goes around until back to the starting place, depending on the time available. If the group is very large, stories can be shared by breaking into small groups. If the group is small, the stories can be shared around the circle as a whole.

For part 2, after the story sharing, we invite people to reflect on how they can increase and foster forgiveness in their leadership practice. We do this by asking them to use the sentence stem provided and continue to freewrite whatever comes out as they move their pens across the page (or fingers on their keyboards) over a timed period—usually two to five minutes. Participants are then invited to share with the whole group if they choose.

Appreciative Resilience Plan

In this workshop section, we use the 4-D AI process (discovery, dream, design, destiny/delivery) with the topic “being my best resilient self” as a way to develop a personal resilience plan. This exercise can be done in one hour, although more time allows for more depth in each of the phases. It is designed to be used with a group of individuals who pair up and share ideas as they develop their own personal resilience plans using appreciative inquiry.

This exercise can also be used for other purposes, such as coaching or mentoring to help an individual come up with a personal plan using relevant topics (leading/living/working at my best). It is a great way to experience appreciative inquiry and its power for planning a desired future based on strengths, successes, and what is working well.

The exercise takes participants through five parts:

Part 1, Discovery: participants explore what they already know about “being my best resilient self.”

Part 2, Dream: participants create visual images for their vision of the future “best resilient self.”

Part 3, Dream: participants write provocative propositions, similar to vision statements, for their future as “my best resilient self.”

Part 4, Design: participants write the steps needed to get to that future.

Part 5, Destiny/Delivery: participants go off and start taking those steps into their future.

After this full version of the exercise, we explain the parts in more detail and suggest how to use the exercise with teams.

Exercise: Appreciative Resilience Plan

Topic: Being My Best Resilient Self

Part 1: Discovery Interview Pairs

Fold your paper in half to make a booklet; give it to your interviewer. As interviewer, write key highlights and themes from the interview on the back of your partner’s booklet.

Interview questions: Tell a story that illustrates you “being my best resilient self.” What do you value about yourself and others in that story? What three wishes do you have for “being my best resilient self”?

Share highlights from the interviews: What did you hear from your interviewee that struck you? What are the key themes?

Give the booklet to your interviewee.

Option: if time allows, share highlights in a group of two pairs.

Part 2: Dream—Visual Image

As individuals, choose your key theme(s).

On the front of your booklet, create a visual image of your future “best resilient self” that illustrates your key theme(s).

Part 3: Dream—Provocative Proposition

On the left inside page of the booklet, write a provocative proposition—a full sentence written in the present tense that represents your future “best resilient self,” is bold, and provokes action. Other options: write as a newspaper headline, a slogan . . .

Part 4: Design—How Will You Make Your Future Happen?

How will you practice being your best resilient self? What steps, what actions are you going to take as you experience hope, despair, and forgiveness? How will you use appreciative inquiry in your leadership work? Write key steps and actions on the right inside page of your booklet.

Share your booklet with others. Some options: share with your original partner or in small groups.

Part 5: Destiny/Delivery—Sustaining Your Future

Take your booklet and DO IT! Then celebrate, rediscover, redream, and redesign.

To facilitate this exercise, bring colored paper and pens (multiple colors). Begin by asking participants to choose their paper and fold it in half to create a booklet. This booklet is theirs to take away. It captures the pieces of the appreciative inquiry: discovery themes, dream images (visual and word), and design steps.

Part 1 of the exercise is the discovery phase and begins with paired discovery interviews, with each person taking a turn interviewing and being interviewed about the topic of “being my best resilient self.” In addition to asking the exercise questions, the interviewer can ask other open-ended questions to encourage the storytelling and dig further into the interviewee’s values and wishes. The interviewer notes on the back of the interviewee’s booklet the highlights and themes that arise. After the interview, the interviewer shares the highlights and themes with the interviewee, then gives the booklet to the interviewee, who works with it for the rest of the exercise. The interviewee reviews the highlights and themes discovered through the interview process for “being my best resilient self.” Some of these themes may have come from the resilience story, the values, or the wishes.

Moving into the dream phases (part 2 and 3) of this AI process, participants imagine their future—whatever time line that means (six months, one year . . .). For part 2 of the exercise, participants create a visual image for the dream phase. Each person chooses a theme or cluster of themes from the discovery phase to use in the dream phase, imagining a future for “being my best resilient self” in which the theme or themes fully exist. On the front cover of the booklet, each person draws using the colored pens an image, a metaphor representing the theme(s) visually. The image creates a dynamic cover for the booklet and is an essential part of the meaning making and understanding of what guides the future.

In part 3, participants translate the visual image into words— a provocative proposition. The provocative proposition goes on the inside left-hand page of the booklet. It is provocative because it provokes action. Participants write their provocative propositions in present tense as though they are already in the future and their dream of it is realized. Using the present tense makes the propositions provocative and elicits the question “How did I get to this future?” The answers lead to the action steps needed to get there.

Part 4 is the design phase, in which participants identify the steps needed to make their future, represented by the visual image and provocative proposition, a reality. They write these steps on the right-hand inside page. The steps are about how they can practice hope and a hopeful view, how they can sustain themselves by focusing on strengths and capabilities in times of despair, and how they can uplift forgiveness in their leadership work. The design steps are grounded in what was discovered (recorded on the back of the booklet), what was envisioned (on the front cover and inside left page), and what participants have explored in earlier parts of the appreciative resilience workshop.

Part 5 is the destiny/delivery phase and is about going out and implementing and sustaining the plan. This template is a great takeaway that people can easily keep and refer to as they sustain the plan by taking those steps and modifying them as they rediscover, redream, and redesign.

If more time is available, this exercise template can be used with teams to collaboratively create a resilience plan. When facilitators are working with teams, the topic might be “our resilient team” for the purpose of building team resilience together. The questions could be: Tell a story that illustrates our resilient team. What do you value about yourself and others in that story? What three wishes do you have for our resilient team?

Discovery interviews can be done in pairs and highlights shared with the team. The dream and design parts can be done as a whole team, if the team is small. If the team is large, dividing into small groups works best. Each small group could share with the whole team what is arising in each part of the exercise. Coming up with themes that have been discovered, creating visual images and provocative propositions for their future, and designing steps together are all powerful team-building experiences. Facilitators could use flip-chart paper to capture what arises for all to see as they work through the parts. The takeaway could be a summary report (or some other creative capturing) including pictures of the charts and brief explanations of the plan. One of our clients creatively posted on a wall the group’s provocative proposition, themes, visual images, and action steps. The wall was in a location where all members would see it frequently and be reminded of what came out of their appreciative inquiry.

Uplifting the Resilience of Others

In our sessions and workshops, we focus a lot on individual leadership resilience. We know that personal resilience is essential to leadership. Through the strength of their own resilience, leaders can help others reflect on their journeys through hope, despair, and forgiveness. Using appreciative questions and processes is essential to lifting up the resilience of others. In this section, we suggest some questions and invite you to design others that would fit your context.

Exercise: Uplifting the Resilience of Others

Reflect on what you are already doing to uplift the resilience of others.

1. How are you currently uplifting what others are best at? What more might you do?

2. How are you building and using appreciative questions in your leadership work? What more might you do?

3. How are you reflecting, in the day to day, on the idea that powerful questions can change a life?

4. How are you exploring, understanding, and nurturing what sustains those around you? What more might you do?

5. What else . . . ?

Create two or three ideas in response to this question: What things will you do as a leader to uplift the resilience of others?

This exercise can be done as an individual reflection followed by an opportunity to share some highlights with the whole group. In teams, after individual reflection, team members could share ideas and ways they might implement those ideas in order to uplift each other. This is the last workshop section. It can easily be used on its own and periodically. Ongoing reflection on uplifting the resilience of others is useful both for individual leaders and for teams.

We have been moved, as illustrated in Isobel’s story that starts this chapter, by the power of this appreciative resilience workshop. It provides leaders with exercises that apply AI processes and questions in order to explore the leadership journey through hope, despair, and forgiveness for the purpose of building resilience.